Dr. Rachael Ross: Age Appropriate Sex Education & How Labels Can Confine Us
Podcast Transcript Season 2 Episode 30
Interviewer: Liz Goldwyn
Illustration BY Black Women Animate
This week’s podcast guest is Dr. Rachael Ross, sexologist, family physician, mother and founder of the Dr. Rachael Institute where she certifies other sexologists. Dr. Rachael and Liz chat about the importance of age appropriate sex education, giving kids ownership over their bodies, getting back to the pleasure potential of sex, and how labels can confine us. Dr. Rachael also answered some questions submitted by our Sex Ed community!
The following is a transcript of the interview from the episode:
Liz:
Almost your whole family is doctors.
Dr. Rachael Ross:
Yeah. I guess that might be a little bit of an exaggeration. But I have a brother, a sister who are physicians, and another sister who's an orthodontist, and my dad was an orthodontist. My dad was a physician, so he's the one who started the practice. Since it's kind of the family business and it's a labor of love, that's how I fitted in. That's the only real way between juggling being here, and being there, and having a little one, and being a wife. I think it's all very complicated, but you do what you got to do just to sleep good at night. Yeah.
Liz:
But that's where you started out in Indiana?
Dr. Rachael Ross:
Yeah, definitely Gary, Indiana. I went to Vanderbilt for undergrad, and I went to Meharry Medical College, and I went to the American College of Sexologist for my sex ed stuff. Always, my base has always been Gary, Indiana because that's where I'm from, born and raised, and it's kind of where my heart is. It's hard to let it go.
Liz:
Were you initially specializing in sexology when you went to med school?
Dr. Rachael Ross:
I've always, even through college with HIV prevention, it was always something about sex and just realizing that there wasn't really a career for it. I thought med school, sex, vaginas, penises, all that, that we were going to get a little more of that. I remember kind of in senior year just being like, "I still don't know anything about sex. I know how babies work. It's all about reproduction." I went to the dean and I was like, "Let me put together this program where I could bring in some sex workers from the bookstore down south, everything is bigger, so we had these huge sex stores where people would go to get their sex toys, but there were also theater in the back, they had gory holes in the back, there were prostitutes. It was just like this own underworld."
I was like, "I'm bringing some of these people in here so that all the physicians can actually learn and know how diverse sex is," and so on and so forth. She's like, "Sex has absolutely nothing to do with medicine and you can't do the program," and so on and so forth. After I finished, that's when I was like, "Forget this, I got to be on my own mission to get educated about sex." That's when I went into sexology.
Liz:
True and sad that most med students only get one day of sexual intake training.
Dr. Rachael Ross:
I don't even know. When I was in med school, we didn't even get that. It's all about reproduction. We do learn how the penis works. We don't really learn the anatomy. The first time I saw a picture of the clitoris, I was like, "What is that, a rabbit? Are those bunny ears?" We don't get any of that stuff. It's more so really is about erectile dysfunction and how to have a baby, how to make a baby, sperm, eggs, basic reproduction stuff.
Liz:
Which is kind of crazy when most people think if they go to their physician or even their therapist, let's say, they would expect them to have a certain degree of training in sexuality to be able to answer questions or dysfunctions.
Dr. Rachael Ross:
You would think it's like we really are committed to families. If we're really doing our part and trying to make sure everybody's got what they need, you would think everybody would have some basic sexuality training. But you're right, OB-Gynes, family medicine physicians, psychiatrists, psychologists, most of them would tell you, "Well, no, I'm going to look it up to see if I can refer you out to somebody for that sex part."
I've always said, when I'm keeping families together and people are like, "How does sex keep families together?" "Hello?" If two people are in a relationship together and they actually are touching, and being intimate, and feel connected in a sexual way, it makes the bills not seem as high. It makes life seem not as crazy when you have this person that you've connected in a certain way. I'm all about it. I'm all for it. I'm like, "Let's teach as many people as much as we can about sex and so that we can keep them moving in the right direction," right?
Liz:
Yeah. Some therapists say, who don't specialize in sex and marriage therapy, that sex and intimacy is a good gauge of where a relationship is at.
Dr. Rachael Ross:
I like that, because it's true. I think so many couples end up in this roommate zone. Like, "This is my best friend." You see them on the Facebook, "My best friend." They post a thousand pictures of each other together. What you'll find is oftentimes those couples are the ones that are just lacking intimacy and lacking in connectiveness, and so then it's very easy to be distracted. It's easy to meet someone on Facebook. It's easy to meet someone at the grocery store. It's easy to kind of chip away at the foundations of what we consider to be families because this connection isn't there when you're craving it. It's almost like saying you're not attracted to me anymore, you don't like me like that anymore."
It's almost like saying we have just dissociated from being these people who were passionate about each other and would do anything for each other just to kind of be like, "Ugh, do you have to come with me to the party again today?" We keep it all inside. Keeping the sexual energy alive is such a big part of connectedness and being in a long term relationship. It's going to have ebbs and flows, but it should at least flow every now and then. That's why I started the Dr. Rachael Institute as a way to kind of train other people to know how to help people regain what they've lost, or find what they never had, or connect with themselves in ways that they never thought possible, because society we grow up in is such a restrictive environment. It's hard to celebrate who we are.
Liz:
Speaking of celebrating who you are and letting it flow, so sexual energy, it comes from yourself first, right?
Dr. Rachael Ross:
That's right.
Liz:
Regardless of whether or not you're partnered, that's something, I think, we all need to learn to tap into. I actually think we should be talking to kids appropriately at an early age about masturbation or self-love. I'm curious how you approach that also being a mother yourself.
Dr. Rachael Ross:
Sure, definitely. It's funny, my little one, she just turned three and she doesn't want me to wash her vagina. She wants to wash it herself. I tell her that's great. We talk about how special this area is and that it's all hers. She can do whatever she wants with it, but at this point, you don't let anyone touch down there, play down there. I said, "It feels good when you touch it, and that's fine. You could touch down there as much as you want, just don't put stuff in there because then it starts to hurt, and then we have other issues." It's nice to see that this information that I've been giving I'm actually using it now, because my big goal is for her to grow up and not have the hang ups that I've had and to not have the issues that I've struggled with or that other people have struggled with, that she's just comfortable in her space, of who she is claiming who she wants to be sexually, whoever that is, and comfortable and confident in that way.
I think it does start in childhood. The shame starts early. The pain around sex starts early. Our sexual templates develop so early, who were ultimately so in love with and attracted to start. It's there by the time we're seven. If you don't nurture kids, and help them to understand that relationships are natural and they're wonderful, and that sex is an important part and it's a healthy part of life but we're not ready for it just yet, I think that that plants the seeds and foundations where you can have a thinking person instead of someone who's in sexual situation because they're afraid to get out of it, or they don't know what to do, or they're misinformed. Raising a little one, you want all those things for them.
Liz:
If you start out with a family practice with some of your family in Gary, Indiana, did you integrate sexology into that practice? How was the reaction?
Dr. Rachael Ross:
I did. I've always gotten a positive reaction about the sex thing. I remember when I told my parents that this is what I was going to be doing, they kind of didn't get it, but they were just like, "Well, if that's what you want to do." But growing up in a black community, black community, it was a very conservative space. I think that the popular media will make you think otherwise, but it's very conservative, it's very based in Christian traditions. We don't talk about a whole lot. Everything is kept in the dark and in the closet and it's a secret.
I think, me coming forward and saying that I was going to be a sexologist and this is what we're going to be doing here was, I don't think anyone was shocked because I've always been kind of the middle child just doing my own thing type of thing. It wasn't a shocker. I think what was shocking is when I wrote "Down Right Feel Right," which is an outercourse book. When my mom actually picked it up and she saw penis, and she saw saliva, and she saw ... That was the point where it actually became real to her. She'd seen me, she'd heard me, she know I had patients, she know I had clients. But to actually see that her daughter had put out what she just couldn't even imagine, particularly when it comes to oral sex, when in the African-American community, it's always like, "Ugh, he pees out of that, please don't put your mouth on it." Those were the types of messages I got. That was kind of a shock and awe thing for her.
But in terms of mixing sex and relationships, I don't think that that was a big deal, particularly when we had such a high problem with teen pregnancy, and STDs, and miseducation, and non-education because early on, it was really all about young people, and giving them the tools that they needed to navigate through relationships and sex in a fruitful way. No one could fault you for that.
Liz:
How do you approach teaching sex ed in a more conservative community?
Dr. Rachael Ross:
Great question. I think conservative communities, though, and particularly African American community, they were just happy somebody was doing it. I really avoided going into schools because I didn't want to deal with the list of things I couldn't say. The public school system, I really didn't deal a whole lot with, but we would hold forums at the clinic and we would go to skate rinks. It was always on the young people's turf and territory where it wasn't a whole lot of adult chatter as to what you can say and what you can't say. I remember when early on, I was one of those American Red Cross HIV educators, and I was like, "Oh, this is great. I'm going to do all this HIV outreach." I was in college. "I'm like, yeah, yeah, yeah." Then there's this whole long list of things you can't say and a whole long list of things that they want you to say, and prevention just wasn't a really big part of it. It seemed like it was all more so about, "Well, if you got HIV, this is what you do."
Honestly, my whole thing has always been about safer sex. If you're not going to use a condom, what can you do to minimize your risk of getting something? Like what are some alternatives here? Let's use our brain. Let's do risk stratification. Risk stratification is a very kind of like, "Wait a minute, are you telling people not to use condoms?" I remember being on Tom Joyner Morning Show, which is like the big syndicated radio show in African American community. It was World AIDS day and we had a Hollywood actress on there and they had me on there. Before I've done the doctors or anything else, and we were talking about HIV and the whole message is "Get tested, get tested, get tested. Wrap it up, wrap it up," and that's the message.
I was on there and I said, "Well, I think we need to change the message a little bit so it's not all about wrapping it up and getting tested, but we're giving more people more prevention strategies." We're talking about, if you're hooking up with someone and there's no condom around, how can you get off? How can you get your person off and be at safest as you possibly can at that moment? That's where the controversy kind of came in. It's just that, is this lady telling people not to use condoms? What type of irresponsible education is this? But now that we see the shifts are turning in, that's the type of information that studies show we need. We need to know all of our options. We need to know the toolbox of ways to protect yourself and toolbox of ways to keep yourself happy and healthy, not just one little thing.
Liz:
Yeah. There's the AIDS crisis in America, right, that explodes in the '80s. In the early '90s, we start to see it trend in African American communities, especially among straight, heteronormative people having sex. You got hip hop artists really starting, like the Tribe Called Quest song from Midnight Marauders, the title track, the rate of AIDS is growing in the Hispanic and African American community, and education, the proper mean of slowing it down.
Dr. Rachael Ross:
Right.
Liz:
Right, so not just saying put a jimmy hat on it.
Dr. Rachael Ross:
Right. Right.
Liz:
Right? Contextualizing it.
Dr. Rachael Ross:
That's right.
Liz:
Because that's the thing. There's a lot of this education especially in more conservative communities, religious communities, it's all about abstinence, no sex before marriage, and where does that lead people to.
Dr. Rachael Ross:
Yeah. It leads them to STDs and pregnancies that they were too young to handle. Absolutely. I love that, and you're right. Around the mid to late '90s, it really exploded in the heteronormative African American community. I remember being in college and I went to college in Nashville, Tennessee, in Vanderbilt. I remember going to college parties in African American neighborhoods. Sweat on the walls, just music blare, people having sex up against the walls and just sweat was everywhere. I'm like, "Whoa." I'm like, "Oh, my goodness. Reality check, but reality check told me, I was like, "This is about to be a mess. With the way the HIV rates are and we hadn't really started talking about it in our community, this is about to be a hot mess." That's exactly what ultimately ended up happening, is just pure carnal sexual energy. If you don't know what to do with it and you don't know any safer ways to approach it, you end up with an HIV explosion, which is what's happened.
Luckily, we've had some slow down, but we still have a huge way to go. We're still pushing just condoms and we're not really educating people on what sex is, how people do actually connect and exchange energies when they're having sex, how there are safer ways of approaching someone and you don't know their HIV or STD status, how there are different ways that you can use your hand, and your elbow, and the crook of your arm to get people off without necessarily putting yourself in a whole lot of risky situation.
Liz:
Yeah. There's been so much headway within queer communities, especially through dating apps, right, where the exchange of your medical information relating to STDs, it's upfront. There's no taboo around it. It's just a given before you get to business. Same thing with kink or BDSM, but there's so much that heteronormative communities can learn from sharing that information. I've seen so many women, particularly heteronormative women from teenagers through their 40s, who are sexually liberated but really freaked out about how to have the conversation with someone they're sleeping with to "What are we using for protection?" Bring up the condom, bring up getting tested before getting into a monogamous relationship.
Dr. Rachael Ross:
Bring up, "How many other people are you having sex with?" Like, "Are we in a relationship or what's going on?" Notice how difficult that question is for heteronormative women just to even ask. Are you seeing anybody else right now? Like, "Hello?" This is your life flashing in front of you. Not only that, "Are you married even?" Like, "Can we get to the questions that are important?"
Liz:
That's because women are raised to be polite, right?
Dr. Rachael Ross:
Oh, yeah. Raised to be polite and put his feelings above yours. Six years never had an organism, been pretending. The list goes on and on and on of these torturous situations that people put themselves in. Sometimes someone will email me or I'll be in person, and I was just, my mouth will drop. I'm like, "Oh my God, this is real life." Most of the people who probably tune in to your podcast are very aware, probably aware people. You probably attract an audience that is very connected in an aware space. But if you spend some time with someone who's not in that space and really make that kind of about who you're talking to and who your vibing with, it's just a whole different story, and it just breaks my heart sometimes. At least twice a week, my heart is like, "Ugh, you're kidding. What's happening here?"
Liz:
My heart gets broken every day with the emails and DMs we receive from people all over that are walking around with shame. Actually, I think our audience is ... We have sex positive audience, but we have a lot of people who are tuning in from other countries or areas where they don't have access to a lot of information because we have a wide variety of guests. I know for me coming from a place where I started working at Planned Parenthood when I was 13 and I've spent my life in this place, I know how to have that conversation with a partner. I know how to say, "Hey, so we're seeing each other exclusively, when was the last time you got tested? I'm not going to sleep with you without a condom unless we've both been tested and share results." It's been eye-opening for me over the course of my life, especially in my early 30s, going through a divorce with someone I'd been with since 18. How many partners had never been asked that question?
Dr. Rachael Ross:
And get offended.
Liz:
I was just like, "What is going on here? Really?" Like, "You're an adult human being and you've not been tested in three years? How many partners have you had?" What would you suggest, how can you break the ice if you're not someone who comes from the place that we're at or we've seen the stats?
Dr. Rachael Ross:
Yeah. I always tell people that you always can use current events, or a story, or something you read online that bring up sticky conversations. You can either make it up or it can actually be a real article that you just read. Like, "Hey, we're really connecting in this way that I'm really excited about, but I realized I haven't gotten tested since my last partner. Why don't we go together? Why don't we just take time on our schedule and go get tested together and call it a day," because I come from a space where I recognize people lie. Especially most people are having these conversations through text messages, "When was the last time you got tested?" The person behind the other one is like, "Oh, a couple of months ago," and they just texted a response because they feel as though they don't have it, so they're very comfortable with the idea that "I haven't really gotten tested, I don't think I have it, so I'll just tell you anything."
I honestly think people need to get tested together. I think that that makes for the perfect date night. I think it makes a lot of sense. That's my mission, is to say, "Hey," instead of being like, "When was the last time you got tested? Can you send me over your photoshopped paper works? How about we go together, grab a bite afterwards, make a whole day out of it?" I think that the conversation has to be, try to make it as organic as possible, that makes it easier. You can use a piggyback off of a story you read today on the news or you were having a conversation with your girlfriend and she realized that she caught it and she has herpes now and she can't figure out where she got it from. Using those types of things which happen every day to kind of piggyback on how that relates to us as a unit in what we need to do.
I think my drive to educate people about sex and safer forms of sex came from me realizing that I had a problem using condoms. You meet somebody out, you're at the gas station, and you make a connection, and before you know it, back in the day, this was a thing. I think what I recognize now, though, is that I always, from my first sexual encounter on, I always knew how to be a little safer about it. I always knew kind of the things that would ... It's kind of going and you got your seatbelt on, right? You're driving. You could get into a car accident, but you have your seatbelt on, you might be a little safer in it, right?
Liz:
You can calculate risk, but you've raised an interesting point about fantasy or role playing earlier. Again, when fantasy or role play is healthy, it's great, it's wonderful, it's great to experiment and communicate especially if you are in a committed, long-term relationship or partnership, those things, again, in more kink-friendly communities are really negotiated before those things happen. It takes the risk kind of off the table because you have consent, first and foremost. You know what the STD results are, you know how you're going to do it safely, and then it gives you all these boundaries to play, to experiment.
Dr. Rachael Ross:
Got safe words, everything. It's all there. You're absolutely right. I think the heteronormative community that's really kind of vanilla missionary position, maybe doggy style every now and then, I wonder what it takes, and we've coached a few people to the point where they can actually be in that space. But I wonder what it takes to actually get to the point where fantasy becomes a big part of your sexual repertoire. When we find couples who are able to go from vanilla, this is what we've been doing. They're actually getting in the space where they embrace fantasy and they're not ashamed of the fantasy. They're not ... What that's word? Embarrassed. It's an embarrassment issue. It's like, "Oh men, I don't even like to stand up and dance on a cruise ship, so how am I going to go from being the shy person to all of a sudden pretending to be the hooker that my husband wants to pick up when he's on vacation?"
I think, ultimately, bridging the two communities and really kind of making it so that it's not as taboo and that there's not this, and we're seeing it more and more because companies like Bedroom Kandi and Pure Romance and these fluffy communities that cater sex toys and novelties towards the heteronormative community, they're actually trying to infuse a little bit of kink and a BDSM into their lines to kind of makes sex a more playful and fantasy-ridden place because, honestly, you can't ride out a marriage for 40 years or 30 years or 20 years and expect that everybody is going to stay connected sexually without doing some of that. Without having some fantasy, without having some way of just like suspending belief for a few hours, and we're different people than we are in our day-to-day lives. That's ultimately what people are seeking when they're stepping away to find that. If you could find that with someone that you trust, and you love, and you care about, what could be better?
Liz:
Yeah. I think, also right now we're in this phase where we're so inundated with the media and social media on a daily basis of all the trauma and the assault around sex. How do we get back to the pleasure potential?
Dr. Rachael Ross:
Sure. That's a tough one. How do we get back to the pleasure? How do we get back towards ... You're right. I just had a conversation the other day where someone looked at a picture of a woman and said, "She looks like the type who would just have sex with anybody." I was like, "Gosh, do you realize what you're saying here? Do you realize that ..." and this is a person who's a feminist and know all about women's rights. I think at the end of the day, what's happening is we're just not being kind anymore. We're just being so judgmental and so on the bandwagon to lynch whoever says something that we don't agree with, or to talk bad about them and fuel this rage and this hate that is permeating into our relationships and our sex lives.
I think in order to get away from that, I really do think that there has to be kind of this. I don't want to sound all lovey-dovey, but their needs to be a love moment where we're actually glorifying more the positive things that happen, and not necessarily downplaying the negative things that happen, but having conversations about them in a different way. The conversation shouldn't be about, when someone's assaulted, it shouldn't be about going out and killing the person who did it. It needs to be about understanding how something like this happened, understanding how miscommunication happens, understanding how someone's brain can be trained to think all of these things that really aren't even true, and figuring out how we can prevent the next incident from happening as opposed to it all being just negative, hate-filled commentary about it.
I think if we move towards a space where we're having more dialogue and conversations instead talking at each other and getting mad if someone doesn't agree with you, then we might be in this loving space where we can actually get back to where we were headed in the first place.
Liz:
What's expanded your consciousness recently in terms of pleasure potential? What's been something that you're like, "Oh wow, that really ..."
Dr. Rachael Ross:
This is a great question. Probably it's going to go back to my daughter who, in the process of me trying to teach a really good hygiene and understanding that a two-year-old is not going to be able to get all the toilet paper other than nooks and crannies that exist, but at the same time understanding that she has had some pleasurable moments with this area and doesn't think that mommy should be invading that space, I think that that was a wake-up call for me as to remind myself how early pleasure really starts and how it can be interpreted in a variety of different ways. Then all of a sudden, I took myself on this, my journey of, if it was a little boy and he had a little miniature erections, and how her mom's dealing with those, and they're cleaning the foreskin, and he's getting erect.
To me, the whole process of being a really young, toddler, baby and watching her develop has really made me start to question and really start to get in tune with how early all these stuff happens, and then what foundations can we put together for young people coming through this thing called life to avoid some of the pitfalls that we fell into.
Liz:
Because earlier you were saying that you went on a journey of unpacking some of the shame or the ideas that you were raised with ... What was that journey? Was it going to school or was it more a personal research?
Dr. Rachael Ross:
Yeah. That was more of a personal research thing. A personal research and then being a participant observer in my own chaos and confusion. I think it's interesting because you go off to college, you like who you like, you experiment, you do all these great stuff. I think at the end of the day, you develop a sense of identity around what you're doing sexually. I think the revolution came to me that there's always this argument of bisexual people just can't choose, or if a black man who has sex with men decides to say that he's heterosexual, everyone's like, "How can he be heterosexual, he's had sex with men?" I think the journey becomes a part of embracing all of the different types of people that you were attracted to throughout your whole life and knowing that that's a 100% normal, and that's a 100% okay, and that it doesn't necessarily stick a label on you.
I think, for me, that's been my life's journey. Then for next generations, I'm just hoping that they have a different experience with it. Young people today are more in a space of, "Hey, I like guys and girls and the women I dated are okay with it and the guys I dated are okay with it." But I think we come from a generation of pigeonholing. If we can take the pigeonhole out of everything and make it so that everybody understands that sexuality has a lot of gray areas. Today, you might like anal. Three years from now, you might be like, "Ugh, I hate it," and that's okay. We can with that and we can flow with it. Today, I might like women, and next month, I may be married to a guy, and that's okay and that's normal.
Instead of pigeonholing that as a pathology or that something is not right in someone's brain to kind of deal with the fact that that's kind of the way most people's brains work whether they want to admit it or not, that being attracted to someone is very fluid and it doesn't categorize the rest of your life I think becomes kind of that gray area that I had to work through, and that hopefully we can help young people be open enough with their conversation, and their dialogue, and their feelings to not really go through all of that, because it can be tough.
Liz:
Yeah. It's a lot of unpacking of your own judgements in the same way that now, culturally, there's a very open conversation about looking at your own internalized racism, homophobia, misogyny, all of it. We tend to separate sex from that, or judgment on sex if someone has an alternative lifestyle. Whether that be more permissive or more conservative, I don't agree with it. Instead of saying, "Oh, actually, I know many mistresses of the ropes who work primarily with female clients on healing sexual trauma." "Oh, what are the correlations between the work that they're doing with breathing, and body awareness, and meditation?"
Dr. Rachael Ross:
Absolutely.
Liz:
Right? Or yoga. How do you integrate things from other people's experiences? How do you at least listen?
Dr. Rachael Ross:
That's right. I love what you're saying because healing comes from this multidisciplinary approach, an integrative approach. The question that you asked me, since I've launched the Dr. Rachel Institute, we get a variety of people who applied to become sexologist. There was a young lady who applied, and she was typing her application from the Bunny Ranch. And the Bunny Ranch is a, is a brothel basically.
Liz:
In Nevada, yeah.
Dr. Rachael Ross:
A legal brothel in Nevada. I'm reading her story and I was actually sitting on the beach in Cabo at the time and I'm reading it. I was just so ... All of the stuff that I tried to unpack regularly when I approach issues, and when I approach topics, and when I approach people, all of it came flooding back. I was just like, "Oh my God, she's saying that this is a great thing that she's at the Bunny Ranch and she's just doing this for a little while to make money. Oh, my goodness. We had to get her out of there. Yeah, let me call her. Let me get her enrolled in the program. Let me help her strategize," and I had to back off and said, "No, wait a minute, you're judging and you are putting your spin on something that could very much be true. This might be a blessing in disguise for her that she's at the Bunny Ranch."
But there's always this part of me, there's this mom in me, there's this sister in me, there's this aunt in me that's like, "This 20-something year old needs to leave the Bunny Ranch. She needs a better life." But at the same time, who am I to say that? Her journey was that she's providing these types of resources for her clients already, and that she wanted to expand her journey and to actually be respected in her ability to heal people in certain ways. On a daily basis, it's a constant journey. I'm never perfect and I'm never using the right pronouns. I'm never calling it the right thing. I haven't read up on ... Is it LGBTQ today. I'm always a little off on the process, but I'm giving myself permission to be human, and permission to feel, and permission to work through it, and permission to understand that everybody's journey isn't going to be mine, and that I'm going to respect at any way it comes and to help people grow from it.
If they want to grow in this direction, "Hey, I'm with you to go in that direction." It's like this thing, you can't help how you feel, right? I couldn't help how I felt that she deserved better than a Bunny Ranch, and then I was putting judgment on it. I think it's a constant struggle. Some days, I'm better at it than others and, you know.
Liz:
But you have a willingness and an openness to look at yourself and to take a beat. Also, when you say you're struggling with pronouns, even the conversation around pronouns being an accepted part of our nomenclature is relatively recent. But at least you're coming to the table saying this is something-
Dr. Rachael Ross:
That's important.
Liz:
... that is important that we need to become more familiar with. When you take into account your background and the communities that you started out speaking with, that's maybe not the first thing that you're going to go in and talk about, because that may not be the first need of your community.
Dr. Rachael Ross:
Sure. No, that's true.
Liz:
We have some questions from our Instagram users for you.
Dr. Rachael Ross:
Oh, cool. There you go.
Liz:
The first one is, can everyone with a vagina squirt?
Dr. Rachael Ross:
Yes. Everyone with a vagina can squirt. Now, but that is taking apart and taking away the brain part of the vagina. If the vagina just sat on the table and it wasn't connected to the neurons and the brain activity, then yes, every vagina could squirt because it's anatomy, it's basic science. The periurethral glands, they swell up with fluid, and when you have a very strong orgasm, what happens is that those fluid-filled areas squirt out a bunch of fluid. Now, let's talk about what's happening in the brain. If you're worried about your lingerie laundry or you're not comfortable in your situation, you're in pain, you're dealing with some trauma that you never worked through, are you going to be as likely to squirt as the person who is very mindful in the sexual situation? No. Being able to squirt or orgasm actually takes a little bit of being very present in the moment and letting the rest go. I think, unfortunately, a lot of women, we have trouble doing that. The vagina itself would be able to squirt, but the woman herself be able to do that, that's a different story.
Liz:
It's biologically possible.
Dr. Rachael Ross:
Yes, yes.
Liz:
All right. Next question from a user is, how can I have anal sex without pain? How do you start to do it? What's the best way to talk about having anal sex with my partner?
Dr. Rachael Ross:
Love that question. Love that question. Honestly, I think a lot of times when we try anal, we are basing it off with what we're seeing in the porn and online and just of what seems right. But when you look at the anatomy of the way that the anus is structured, what we find is that it strains itself out to the point where ... Okay, so there's an S curve, that actually what makes it so painful is that when someone penetrates, they're hitting the S curve of the anus, right? The whole idea is that if you can approach anal sex for a newbie in a way where your rectum and your anus is actually in a straight line or angled more open instead of closed, that is more comfortable. The positions that do that are squatting positions.
The first time you try anal, [inaudible 00:42:43] you put your butt up, you're leaning over, your head is in the pillow, you're like, "Oh, this hurts." If you would actually allow yourself to kind of sit on it and approach it from a bending position, what you find is that it's opened up enough to the point where it's not going to be as painful. Of course, you also want to spend some time figuring out which lube is right for you. When it comes to anal, some of the silicone lubes are a little better and messier for your sheets, but actually, you have more slipping and sliding. Figuring out what type of lube that you're going to use, but also having the conversation in advance that we're not going to from zero to 1,000 today. This is, we're trying this today, and my anus is not like a vagina, right, at this moment, so let's go a little slower with this, and I'm going to let you know if I'm uncomfortable.
I think oftentimes, too, what happens when we try anal is you forget the foreplay. You're so worked up and like, "Okay, we're going to try it. Let me get in my position," and so you're not really even turned on. Anal is at its best when you're at hottest moment. If you're trying it when you're at your driest moment or at your least turned on state, then it doesn't end up having the best outcome. It ends up feeling like you just took a big old crap. Keeping mindful of the fact that it's supposed to be something that's pleasurable, so do it when you're pleasured, and you're turned, on and you've done the foreplay, and all of that. Making sure you have the right lube, and then starting out with more squatting positions instead of bending on your knees and work your way into the others. When you go to penetrate, start with the pinky first. Pinky, then go with the thumb.
Liz:
Or a toy, right?
Dr. Rachael Ross:
Then go with a toy. We got dilators, we got small toys, go to medium to larger and then do that. Just keep in mind you want to go slow, and you want to communicate the whole time, and if it doesn't work out the first time, try again. Oftentimes, that's the problem, too. We say, "Oh, I hated it, it was terrible." But if this is important to you and it's important to your partner and it's something you want to do, get out there and try it again. First you don't succeed, what to do then? Try and try again.
Liz:
If you don't like it and it's terrible, that's okay.
Dr. Rachael Ross:
Move on. Right. That's right.
Liz:
Our next question is, my partner and I have not had sex for at least three years. Is this recoverable or not?
Dr. Rachael Ross:
Yes, this is so recoverable. Okay. Not having sex for three years, do you still like each other? That's a big questions. Because I think sometimes when we aren't having sex, the real problem isn't the sex, it's just that you can't stand his butt, or her butt, or whoever's butt it is. If there's still a connection there, absolutely, there's hope there. What we do is, when we're trying to reintroduce intimacy into the relationship, we do something based off of this concept called sensate focus, which is basically we go slow. We rebuild intimacy. We start by holding hands. We go out and have a good time. We start kissing. We start making out. We re-explore each other's bodies before the actual sex part comes into play.
Because if you go from three years, "It's been terrible, we haven't had sex" to all of a sudden, "Let's just try it today," what ends up happening is ends up being so awkward and so off that both people kind of retreat in this embarrassed space, and it becomes the elephant in the room, and then they really don't try it again. Kind of rebuilding intimacy by having good times. We know for a fact that if you go and do things that raise the adrenaline together, whether it's taking up skiing, jumping out of an airplane, even getting robbed on the street, believe it or not, actually improves sexual connectiveness.
Liz:
Fear and adrenaline?
Dr. Rachael Ross:
Yes, yes, the adrenaline.
Liz:
We're not suggesting that you go out and get robbed.
Dr. Rachael Ross:
No. Please don't pretend it never happened either. That's very recoverable. Actually, it happens all the time, people who love each other and like each other and aren't disgusted by each other. Oftentimes, you'll find that if it's been three years, there's a disgust thing. It's like, "Well, he's not cleaning right," or "something stinks," or "his breath," "this person's gained weight." We have to work through all of that. But at the end of the day, absolutely, that's recoverable.
Liz:
But what you're saying, which is I believe to be true that we have this idea of sex as being so goal-based and being this one particular thing that it becomes this mountain like, "Oh, fuck, we haven't had sex in a week, a month, two months, a year, six months," whatever it is, but you find that maybe you're not handholding. Maybe you're not even touching. Just in really simple things-
Dr. Rachael Ross:
That's right.
Liz:
... that you can integrate into your daily routine without climbing Mt. Everest or-
Dr. Rachael Ross:
That's right, that's right. Now, you hit it on the head. Even flirting through text message, giving them something to daydream about or fantasize about, all of that is so important.
Liz:
Our next question is, I'm in a long-term relationship and I feel like I can't tell if someone is attracted to me anymore because I'm not looking out for it. Is there a biological thing going on? Have I become less attractive or am I missing the signs? It's not so much that I want others to be interested, but I'm young and I don't like feeling old and frigid.
Dr. Rachael Ross:
Is that question basically people used to flirt at the grocery store and they don't anymore, or is she talking about with her partner?
Liz:
I'm actually not sure the gender identity of the person who's asking, but what I think this questions says to me is that we have this idea that our sexually attractiveness, or our sexual energy, or our sense of our own sexuality is based on someone else validating it rather than spending time reconnecting with our own energy, putting that out there. That's how I interpreted this, I don't know. What do you think?
Dr. Rachael Ross:
Got it, got it. No, I love that. I think, too, that when we're in long-term relationships, I think oftentimes, and this isn't always, what happens is that it lacks passion and it starts to lack excitement. As a result of that, our energy when we're out reflects that. Whereas, if you're excited about life, you're excited about your partner, that attracts people, that attracts energy, that attracts all types of things. I think what could be happening for this person who is in this long-term relationship is that if you're not infusing enough excitement or passion into the situation and into how you're feeling about each other, I think people can pick up on your lack of enthusiasm because when you don't have enthusiasm about your intimate partner, it permeates and everything. It permeates through our work, it permeates through how you're dealing with people at the grocery store, the drive-thru, whatever have you. Sometimes, you don't realize that you might be putting off energy that might be off putting to the people who around you based off of whatever it is that's going on.
Liz:
Get that energy going for yourself.
Dr. Rachael Ross:
Yeah, for yourself.
Liz:
Self, first and foremost.
Dr. Rachael Ross:
That's right.
Liz:
What are you still learning about sex?
Dr. Rachael Ross:
Gosh. That's the cool thing about life. Every day is a journey. Every day I learn something new. Let me see what's the most recent thing I learned about sex. I would say I was reading an article about how these elders are putting together elder porn. This is me passing my judgment on it, and I remember thinking, okay, so they had done a whole writeup about it and interviewed these people who are about to make it. They're basically grandma, people who stereotypically look like grandmas and grandpas having sex.
This was last week. To me, this was my learning lesson about sex, is that to remind myself that we say stay sexual all the way up to the end. As a 90-year-old man, even though you may not have erections like you used to, you're still connected sexually. As a-90-year-old woman, you still have this desire to be touched and be in intimate situations. It reminded me that, especially being out here in California and being so focused on what we look like in the physicality of it, it just gave me quick reminder of the visual aspects of life that we spend so much time worrying about really aren't the most important things around us. I always have little reminder moments of things like that of just kicking myself to think about something differently or to dive deeper into it, and I actually got excited. I'm excited to see the elder porn.
Liz:
I'm going to send you something that a female erotic filmmaker called Erika Lust, who I like, she just made a short porn erotic film also with an older couple. I think that's one area where we culturally have a lot of work today, is around sex and aging. What does that say to you and I sitting here that in 30 years, we're not going to have a juicy vagina?
Dr. Rachael Ross:
Exactly.
Liz:
That we're not going to be attractive to ourselves or to another person? This is an issue.
Dr. Rachael Ross:
That's scary, right? I remember being in the movie theater one day and I think it was Oprah Winfrey and an older black gentleman were embraced and kissing in the thing. I remember the theater was full. Everyone went, "Haa." Because it was just we don't see it, we don't see older people, we don't see larger people, we don't see it. As a result of it, we've been trained and our visions of sex have been whitewashed to think that it's all shiny bodies and this mystical magical perfectness of lustful energy, and it's not. It's very real, it's very different. I think that that's been my biggest reminder, wake-up call recently, is that sex is as raw and as natural of a thing as you can possibly do, and that even supposedly being this well-versed sexologist who trains other sexologists, I still have this crisp, clean implanted version. Implanted, I really meant that, version of what porn should look like or what something that's erotic should look like. I had to rewind and redo it myself.
Liz:
Our big take away from this conversation is all about constantly questioning your biases.
Dr. Rachael Ross:
Yes. Absolutely, all day every day, and using that to just grow and expand and just be better people.
Liz:
Thanks for being here.
Dr. Rachael Ross:
Thanks for having me. This was quite enjoyable. What you're doing is fantastic. I'm giving you the fist. Keep going, keep hope alive, I love it.